


deep blue but you painted me golden

by thatsformetoknow



Series: portfolio [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bi Shiro, Boys In Love, Bullying at School, Childhood Friends AU, Coming Out, Crying, Cuddling, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Gay Lance, Getting Together, Internalised Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Mentions of porn and masturbation but brief, Very fluffy, kinda angsty this one, lance doesn’t realise he’s gay he just thinks he’s broken, sexual awakening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 03:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19264741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsformetoknow/pseuds/thatsformetoknow
Summary: “Shiro…?” Lance asked softly with a frown etched onto his face one afternoon.Shiro looked up from where he was buried in his book. “Yeah?”“I…” Lance said, biting his lip and looking down. “I think something’swrongwith me.”“What do you mean?” Shiro asked, tilting his head. “Are you okay?”Lance gave a small shrug, still not looking at him. “I… I think I’m broken.”Shiro looked concerned at that. “What makes you think that?”Lance sniffed and shrugged again. “I don’t… like girls.”





	deep blue but you painted me golden

They met when Lance was seven. Lance was all freckles and wide smiles and Shiro was that new kid, shy and quiet, the complete opposite of him and yet somehow they’d drifted together. 

Shiro was new and he didn’t have many friends; he was sitting alone in the corner of the playground, drawing patterns into the dirt with a stick. Hunk was Lance’s best friend, and it was just the two of them. Except Hunk was home sick from school today and Lance was alone. 

He hadn’t realised how much he needed Hunk until he was gone. There were other kids, _bigger_ kids, and they saw how upset Lance was that his best friend wasn’t there, they laughed at him and they pushed him, calling him names that he didn’t understand, but knew that they weren’t good. 

Lance was fighting back angry tears when he met Shiro, a grazed knee and a grazed elbow to show for it, too. 

“Are you okay?” He asked quietly, looking up at him and Lance felt his composure crumble. 

“Uh huh.” He said shakily, swallowing thickly as the tears threatened to spill over. 

“Do you want me to come with you to the nurse?” He asked, eyeing the rip in Lance’s trousers where his knee was bloodied and Lance gave a small nod. 

Shiro stood up, leaving his stick on the ground and taking Lance’s hand, walking inside with him to the nurses office. Lance just really hoped that none of the other kids had seen Shiro holding his hand. That was a bad thing, just like missing Hunk was a bad thing, though Lance couldn’t bring himself to snatch it back, not when Shiro had been so kind to him. 

Shiro took him to the nurse and sat with him while she put antiseptic on the graze, cleaning away the blood and bandaging it up. He sat with him for a little longer after that, and the nurse even gave him a lollipop, too. 

They went back to their classroom after that, sitting down in the corner and playing with a few of the toys there, instead of going outside. They got told off when the teacher came in, but Shiro explained that Lance had gotten hurt outside, and she let them off. 

Lance vowed to be Shiro’s friend after that, and told him that he could come and play with him and Hunk when Hunk was back from school. Shiro smiled shyly, cheeks turning pink and nodded. 

“Thank you.” He said, as though he was truly grateful, and Lance smiled back, handing him a little toy shark and clashing it with his own. 

The three became firm friends after that and were practically inseparable. They weren’t in the same class anymore as they moved up through the school, but they still met up each break and lunch time, and went to play at each others houses after school. 

They went to the same high school and made a few more friends like Keith, Pidge and Allura, but the three of them still remained the closest. They were still young, already thinking about what was to come. 

And so was Lance, he was just as invested in acting older than his age as everyone else, except… Lance was quickly discovering that he didn’t feel the same way about certain things as all of his classmates did. 

Namely, girls. 

He didn’t understand it, and he spent weeks dwelling on it, while everyone was talking about which girls they were going to ask out, which were hot and which weren’t, it all just… confused Lance. 

He was probably just a late bloomer, he knew that logically, but the more everyone else went on about it, trying to sound grown up, the more it ate away at him. Lance wasn’t excited to get older and get a girlfriend, Lance wasn’t looking forward to that at all. How was he even supposed to know which girl he wanted to date? How was he supposed to know if he wanted to date them at all?

He asked Hunk, and Hunk had just simply explained to him that when you like a girl, you want to spend time with her, you think that she’s pretty and she makes you blush and feel all warm inside. You want to be her friend and make her happy, but also you want to do things like hold her hand or kiss her, or maybe even some other things.

Lance didn’t know about that. That didn’t seem all that great to him. 

“Shiro…?” Lance asked softly with a frown etched onto his face one afternoon. 

Shiro looked up from where he was buried in his book. “Yeah?”

“I…” Lance said, biting his lip and looking down. “I think something’s _wrong_ with me.”

“What do you mean?” Shiro asked, tilting his head. “Are you okay?”

Lance gave a small shrug, still not looking at him. “I… I think I’m broken.”

Shiro looked concerned at that. “What makes you think that?”

Lance sniffed and shrugged again. “I don’t… like girls.” He said, chancing a small look up to Shiro, before flicking his eyes immediately away again. “I like girls, but I don’t… _like_ them. I don’t wanna kiss them or hold their hands or… do anything that everybody else wants to do with them.”

Shiro was quiet for a moment. “Not everybody likes people, Lance.” He said after a few moments of quiet. “Some people just… don’t like people. You don’t _have_ to like girls.” 

“But… but everybody else likes girls, Shiro, you don’t understand… Everybody… expects me to. Veronica’s always teasing me about my ‘girlfriend’ and I don’t want one!”

Shiro made a soft noise of contemplation. “Well… you might like them in a few years, you never know. You don’t have to have everything figured out right now.”

“Yeah…” Lance sighed. “I guess.”

And that was that. They didn’t bring it up again. Lance decided at the tender age of fourteen that he just… didn’t like people like that. He knew quite a few very pretty girls, but… that’s all they were. He never wanted anything more, he never wanted to kiss them like the other boys wanted to, never wanted to get a girlfriend like the other boys wanted to. 

Eventually… Shiro got a girlfriend, too, and Lance felt more alone than ever. It wasn’t a long relationship, but it still made Lance feel sick. He didn’t know why… he wanted Shiro to be happy, he was his best friend. But it made him feel lonely… because he didn’t want that, because he didn’t like girls like that and he was broken. 

A year passed, and then another, and Lance was quickly approaching his sixteenth birthday. Hunk had managed to get a girlfriend around seven months ago now and they were still going strong. Shiro hadn’t really been with anyone, but there had been a few.

Lance had… well, Lance had dated a lot of people. A lot of people in short succession, to try and bury… whatever this was. To try and fix himself. Because his mother expected him to grow up and find a wife and get married and have kids and how could he do that if he didn’t like girls? How could he have a life if he didn’t like girls? He didn’t want to be alone forever. 

So he turned up the charm and threw himself into it, flirting with any girl that looked at him in passing, and he’d managed to get a few girlfriends, too. He’d gone on more dates than he could count, and kissed just as many girls, hoping that maybe he just had to… find the right one, and then… things would right themselves. 

He was a model boyfriend, he’d walk them home, kiss their cheeks, offer them his coat when it was cold. Take them to the arcade and win them teddy bears and always _always_ pay for dinner. He’d text when he said he would, he’d call before bed. 

They were his friends and he liked them, but… that was it. Kissing them felt weird. Kissing them felt like… kissing his sister, or kissing Hunk. It wasn’t what he wanted. 

But he kept at it, kept up the pretense that he was happy; that things just kept going wrong and he just kept bouncing back. But he wasn’t happy, and he wasn’t fixed. 

Lance felt ill when Hunk told him he’d lost his virginity. He was bright red and stammering as he told him, because they were best friends, that what they _do_ , and suddenly everything had caught up to him, that yes, they were sixteen years old now, and sex was something that should probably be on their minds. 

Lance had never even thought about it. He’d he’d been horny before, _yes_ , he _was_ a teenager, after all. He’d heard the guys at school talking about things they’d done with their girlfriends, or the latest porn they’d watched and how hard they came to it. 

Lance had done a good job of burying his feelings over time, but that just made all the anxiety resurface. Lance should be thinking about having sex with girls too and touching himself to the thought of it. But he hadn’t and he didn’t, because he didn’t like girls and he was broken. 

He wondered if Shiro had lost his virginity, or what Shiro thought about when he touched himself, but he really _really _didn’t want to know. Because Shiro wasn’t broken, he was quiet, yes, but he liked girls. Hunk liked girls. All the boys liked girls and they weren’t going to be the ones spending the rest of their lives unhappy and trying to find a way to explain to their mothers why they were still alone at fifty years old despite the fact that plenty of girls would have been happy to be with him.__

__He just didn’t like girls._ _

__It was a few nights after Hunk told him that he got up his laptop, bedroom door locked and hidden away under his covers, switching the tab to incognito and looking on pornhub. Maybe he just… hadn’t thought about it properly yet. Maybe he just hadn’t thought about it enough, maybe this was something that would help._ _

__He scrolled down the page with wide eyes, the animated ads on the side of the page scaring him a little and suddenly he wasn’t sure if he wanted to actually click on any of these videos after all._ _

__Eventually he gave in, making sure his headphones were plugged in before opening one of the videos and blowing out a long breath. He watched if for three whole minutes before he’d had enough. It wasn’t sexy at all and the girls moans sounded… well… not appealing to him at all, and definitely not sexy or arousing._ _

__Maybe it was just one video, maybe he just needed to try another. He didn’t really want to, but he wanted to be fixed more than he wanted to not watch the porn, so he tried. He tried five more videos before turning his laptop off and curling in on himself on the bed._ _

__He didn’t feel horny he just felt upset and anxious and scared. He tried slowly palming his dick through his pyjama pants for a few minutes, but he stopped quickly. It wasn’t going to help… and even if it was, what then? What was he supposed to think about? He’d heard the guys at school talking about their ‘hot fantasies’ of the cheerleaders or the teachers or their best friend’s mom’s._ _

__Lance didn’t want to think about any of that. He didn’t want to think about anything at all, and so even if he made himself hard, what then? He was in tears before he could help himself, curled into a tight ball and covers pulled up in a cocoon around him._ _

__He really was going to be alone forever, all because he couldn’t make himself like girls._ _

__He dialled the serial dating back a little after that. He wasn’t achieving anything except hurting other people and getting hurt himself, anyway._ _

__Shiro and Hunk stayed over less these days, now that they were older and had more things to focus on. Shiro was on the football team, which was surprising, but Lance was happy for him, because it was bringing him out of his shell a little around other people. Hunk spent a lot of time with his girlfriend he had other things to do. He did extra cooking classes after school as an extra curricular, and they all had homework and tests, and they just didn’t have as much time for each other anymore._ _

__Sure, they’d added a few more people to their little friend group since the days when it had just been Hunk and Lance, and then Hunk, Lance and Shiro, but still, that didn’t make things any easier. Hunk and Shiro were Lance’s _best_ friends, and as much as he wanted to talk to someone about this… he couldn’t. _ _

__He just couldn’t find the words._ _

__They stopped by to watch some of Shiro’s games after school to support him, and sometimes they’d hang out a little after that. Shiro and Hunk were both coming over to his later tonight, and they came straight from school, Shiro opting to shower there instead._ _

__He and Hunk were lounging about in his bedroom when Shiro came back in dressed in a towel to get his clothes. Lance looked up as he came in, eyes running over Shiro’s body without thinking, water running down his skin and from his hair and no doubt dripping onto the floor._ _

__Lance half wanted to take the towel from him and dry him off himself, just to save his carpet. Shiro had a lot more muscles than Lance remembered, but then again, he hadn’t seen him shirtless since before he started taking sport more seriously. He kind of just wanted to look at them for a really long time, maybe touch them a little too. Were they firm? Probably. Still, he wanted to dry him off so he’d stop dripping everywhere._ _

__Shiro left only a moment later with his hands full of his clothes and it took Hunk calling him three times before he had Lance’s attention again._ _

__Lance put it easily from his mind and it stayed there for a good two weeks or so, though Lance found himself watching Shiro more closely both on the pitch and off of it._ _

__He missed Shiro, he really did. He put it down to that. That Shiro had been a lot busier with his other commitments, and hadn’t had as much time for Lance (though he hadn’t seen Shiro any less than he’d seen Hunk) and so Lance just appreciated it more when Shiro laughed._ _

__How when they were in public he’d bite his lip and giggle softly, averting his eyes as his cheeks pinkened, but when they were alone he’d throw his head back and laugh with his mouth wide and his eyes smiling, and Lance had never felt more blessed to be one of the few that got to see that._ _

__How Shiro’s forehead would crease and he’d worry his lip between his teeth, tapping his pencil against his text book as he read through it, trying to make sense of what was inside, and Lance really should have been doing the same, but he wasn’t; he was just watching Shiro._ _

__Lance started inviting Shiro over more after that, and maybe it hadn’t been that Shiro was busy after all, maybe Lance had just been pushing everyone away, because Shiro accepted each invite._ _

__He stayed over a few times, and Lance loved the way that Shiro’s hair stuck up in the mornings and he wrinkled his nose and rubbed his eyes, yawning as he slowly came to. The way that he’d pour just enough milk into his cereal bowl and then give another splash, just one, just until it was perfect and then give a satisfied little hum as he screwed the cap back on._ _

__Or the way that Shiro’s face would light up as he saw Lance across the school, a wide smile breaking out over his face as he raised his hand and waved him over. Lance just… really really loved spending time with him, he wanted to be around him all the time._ _

__He felt bad about it, because he didn’t feel this way about Hunk, and it was supposed to be the three of them. Lance was supposed to be equally friends with both Hunk and Shiro, and Hunk having a girlfriend didn’t mean that Lance didn’t want to spend time with him anymore…_ _

__But Lance didn’t look at the way Hunk looked in the morning, or the way his voice sounded on a sleepy late night call, or the way he smiled or laughed or said Lance’s name. He just didn’t. Only Shiro._ _

__It was late one night when it hit him. Shiro was staying over, and he’d been coming over a lot more recently. Lance had been scared he’d been too annoying inviting him over all the time, or that Shiro was busy and just didn’t want to say no, but… he seemed to be happy enough to spend time with Lance._ _

__It was late, and Lance’s room was only illuminated by the fairy lights that Rachel had helped him put up above his bed last year, and Shiro was in the midst of trying (and failing) to stay awake while reading his book._ _

__He was beautiful. He was beautiful and he was adorable and Lance just wanted to look at him forever. His heart felt light and fluttery as Shiro gave a little sleepy yawn and a little sigh, blinking slowly as he tried to keep awake._ _

__He wanted to kiss him._ _

__Lance, who had never wanted to kiss anyone in his life before, right here, right now, wanted nothing more than to kiss his best friend. _Oh_. _ _

__“Oh.” He said softly, lips parting._ _

__“Mm?” Shiro asked, glancing at him._ _

__Lance bit his lip, forehead creasing into a frown._ _

__“What is it?” Shiro asked, putting his bookmark in place and putting his book on the bedside table, turning over to face Lance._ _

__“I think something’s wrong with me.” Lance said softly._ _

__“Wrong how?” Shiro asked, still sleepy but all of his attention focused on Lance._ _

__“I don’t like girls.” Lance admitted, the same thing he’d admitted so many years ago but it held such a different weight now._ _

__Now that Lance had had girlfriends after girlfriends, now that all of Lance’s friends and classmates had had _sex_ with girls, now that everyone was touching themselves and thinking of girls and Lance still hadn’t been able to bring himself to, because he just didn’t know what he’d think about. _ _

__No, saying you didn’t like girls when you were still just hitting puberty, and saying you didn’t like girls when you were approaching seventeen were _very_ different things._ _

__“Still?” Shiro asked, tilting his head. “You’ve dated a lot of girls.” He observed._ _

__“Yeah.” Lance agreed. “I was just trying… to fix myself.” He said quietly. “I thought maybe if I found the right girl then I… would be better.”_ _

__Shiro frowned. “It’s okay not to like girls, Lance.” He said and Lance met his eyes. “You don’t have to like anyone.”_ _

__“But I _do_.” Lance said before he even thought about it. _ _

__“Like someone?”_ _

__Lance looked down and gave a tiny nod._ _

__“Is it… a boy?” Shiro asked Lance winced, screwing his eyes closed and nodding again. “Lance… That’s okay.” Shiro said and Lance sniffed, slowly opening his eyes to look at him._ _

__“It is?”_ _

__“Of course it is.” Shiro said gently. “It’s not your choice who you like.”_ _

__“He’s never going to see me as anything more than a friend.” Lance said, huffing out a breath. “He’s straight.”_ _

__“How do you know?”_ _

__“He’s had girlfriends.”_ _

__“So have you.” Shiro pointed out and Lance bit his lip._ _

__“He’s never going to see me as anything more than a friend.” Lance said again. Shiro couldn’t get his hopes up like this, Lance would _know_ if Shiro was into guys. _ _

__“Anyone would be lucky to have you, Lance.” Shiro said with a soft smile. “It’s his loss.”_ _

__Lance gave a small smile at that, despite himself. “Even you? Would you be lucky to have me?” He asked and Shiro’s eyes widened._ _

__He sat up a little, leaning up on one elbow and looked at Lance. “Like I said, anyone would be lucky to have you. Even me.”_ _

__Lance sighed and looked away. “Don’t say things like that.”_ _

__“Why not?”_ _

__“Because!” Lance said frustratedly._ _

__“This person you like…” Shiro said. “Is he good enough for you?”_ _

__“I already told you, he’s never going to like me back.”_ _

__“That’s not what I asked.” Shiro said, a small smile playing at his lips._ _

__“He’s the best person I know.” Lance said quietly, frowning._ _

__“When you said…” Shiro started, and then was quiet for a moment. “When you said even me…”_ _

__“Don’t.” Lance said, clenching his jaw. “Please, just don’t.”_ _

__“Lance.” Shiro said softly and Lance looked at him, Shiro brought a hand up to gently smooth the creases out of his forehead, before settling his hand on his cheek, the pad of his thumb stroking over his cheek bone._ _

__“What are you doing?” Lance asked, swallowing._ _

__“Trying to think of a way to ask your permission to kiss you.” Shiro murmured and Lance felt his heart stop._ _

__“I think- I think that’s a pretty okay way.” Lance said, meeting Shiro’s eyes._ _

__“Can I kiss you?” He asked and Lance nodded wordlessly, eyes falling closed as Shiro moved in, pressing their lips together._ _

__It was nothing like any of the kisses he’d shared before. This was… this was real. This was something Lance _wanted_ , something he’d wanted for longer than he’d realised. This wasn’t him kissing Shiro because he had to, this was him kissing Shiro because he _wanted to_ , something that he’d never wanted before in his life. This was soft and it was delicate and it was tentative. But it was so full of love, so soft and so gentle, the way that Shiro was cradling his face, moving their lips together. Lance never wanted it to end. _ _

__It did end, and Lance finally remembered how to breathe again, not moving away, just resting his forehead against Shiro’s, breath falling softly over each others lips._ _

__“Lance…” Shiro murmured, but Lance cut him off with whatever he had been going to say, kissing him again._ _

__It was longer before they broke apart this time, chasing each others lips each time either of them moved to pull back, smiling against each press, holding each other close, and Lance felt like he could just… float away._ _

__“You are more than just a friend to me.” Shiro murmured against his lips._ _

__“But I… I didn’t… You never said…”_ _

__“You never said, either.” Shiro said, stroking his cheek and looking at him lovingly. “How long have you been holding onto this?”_ _

__Lance averted his eyes. “A really long fucking time.” He said, giving a soft sniff._ _

__“Lance.” Shiro said and Lance looked back at him, eyes glossy. “There’s nothing wrong with you.” He said and that was all it took for Lance’s eyes to well and tears to spill over._ _

__Shiro pulled Lance against him, Lance burying his face in the crook of Shiro’s neck as Shiro stroked his back soothingly as he held him. “You are exactly who you are supposed to be.” He murmured, other hand cupping the back of his head, fingers entangled in his hair. “You are exactly where you are supposed to be.”_ _

__It was all so much. Everything was… so much. All of those years that Lance had spent thinking that he was broken, that something was wrong with him, all of that time he’d spent trying to fix himself, dating girls and hoping that something somewhere would stick. Wondering how he was going to explain to his family that he was still alone, because he just didn’t like girls._ _

__He would still have something to explain to his family… but he didn’t feel alone anymore. Because he wasn’t alone, because Shiro was right here, cradling his body against his own like Lance was the most precious thing in the world._ _

__“I’ve got you.” Shiro murmured and Lance pulled up slightly to look at him, vision blurred and a watery smile on his face._ _

__“You’ve got me?” He asked, voice soft and shaky and Shiro nodded, tucking Lance’s hair behind his ear and gently swiping his thumb underneath his eyes._ _

__“Always.”_ _

__Lance swallowed thickly, letting his eyes fall closed before more tears could well in them, leaning down to press their lips together again._ _

__Shiro had him, it was going to be okay. He was exactly who he needed to be, and he was exactly where he needed to be. Shiro had him._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are greatly appreciated <3


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